Retail giants (Metro Cash & Carry, IKEA India) brace to create a seamless shopping experience

17th September 2021, Mumbai:

Retail giants in India are gearing up to make shopping on digital platforms and physical stores seamless and uniform. They believe, a combination of physical and digital shopping is the future of the retail industry.

Arvind Medirattam, Managing Director and CEO, Metro Cash & Carry India, says, the pandemic has accelerated digitalization of the retail space by three or four years, leading to an emergence of hybrid nature of shopping.

Medirattam was speaking at a session on ‘Innovations changing the retail segment’ organized as part of the 17th India Innovation Summit by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

He said, ‘phygital’ shopping brings better opportunities for an omnichannel player. Omnichannel retail is a multichannel approach to sales providing seamless customer experience for shopping online or in a brick-and mortar store. The need for instant gratification is another trend, Mediratttam added, Consumers now want goods and services to be supplied at the click of a mouse. Hence, retailers have to be agile and efficient to meet this expectation.

Kavitha Rao of IKEA India, adds, the online share of overall business of omnichannel retailers is 12 per cent and 80 per cent of customers start their journey of purchase online. Hence, it is important to make each of these steps seamless – online or offline, she opines.

Timo Salzsieder, CIO/CSO, Metro AG, adds, customers’ experiences have bigger implications for organizations. This needs to be uniform.

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